Featured books

Distancing: Avoidant Personality Disorder

Disorders of Personality: DSM and Beyond, 2nd edition

Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Practice

Mindfulness and Acceptance

Transforming Anxiety, Transcending Shame

A Guide to Rational Living

Party of One

The Highly Sensitive Person

The Introvert Advantage

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If you would like to publish your story or experiences about being an avoidant person suffering with social anxieties, Click here.

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Name:      Person 7
State:       Canada

Story:

I'm a 25 year old woman from Ontario, Canada. I stumbled on this website while browsing through information about anxiety. I found a definition of APD and found that it perfectly fit my description. I hate being in public. I hate taking the bus. I hate going to work and having to deal with so many people. What makes it harder is the fact that I work in a call center environment so it's very hard for me to deal with people everyday. I wasn't always like this although now that I think about it, I did show signs of it. I used to go out with my friends in high school but was always worried about what people thought of me.

I then lived overseas by myself and found it harder and harder to talk to people. I just wasn't comfortable. When I got back to Canada, everything went back to what it was until I started going to school. I hated having to speak in public for presentations. I didn't really want to talk to anybody. I met my best friend then and she is the only one I can talk to now because she is the only one who understands me.

I find small things very hard for me to do. I hate being in crowded areas. I feel like everyone's eyes are on me, judging me or people are laughing at me. I don't like going to parties. If I do go because I'm forced to, I sit in quiet and just stare at people but I eventually leave. I don't like looking people in the eyes because I always feel like their judging me when they look at me. I despise myself for being like this. I just wish I could live in a field somewhere away from people so that I wouldn't have to deal with this.

My mother says that it's my fault because I don't like people. That's not the case. I'm a very nice person but I just cannot deal with people because I always worry they don't like me or things like that. I was depressed for a long time and it never really went away. I was even in the hospital and thought everything would be okay after this. But now at 25, I just feel like it's getting worse and worse. I don't really know if it will ever be better.

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